How to use this Blog

Often when we pray for others, we either fall into meaningless repetition or submit a grocery list of requests to God, hoping that He will respond to our wishes and desires. When we have finished praying, we end up being unsatisfied, fretful and uncertain as to whether we can trust God with the assignment we have just given Him. My personal experience has been that such “need based” praying is often boring, filled with uncertainty, and it reduces prayer to a meaningless exercise.

What if we changed our perspective on prayer and began to pray Scripture—what if we echoed back to God that which we know is His will—would that not stimulate our faith, bring glory to Him and rid us of the repetition that Jesus warned us about? Years ago I discovered that if I pray Scripture, I can anticipate my time of prayer with excitement, wondering exactly what I will pray next. Best of all, it makes me sink deep roots into God’s promises and His will. That kind of praying is effective, not just in moving God’s heart toward us, but it gives us a deep settled satisfaction of knowing that we have just connected with our Heavenly Father.

Will you join me in praying Scripture on behalf of ourselves and others? God has blessed Rebecca and me with eight lovely and lively grandchildren. Long ago I gave up on the idea of simply listing their names before God and asking Him to “bless” them. What I have chosen to do is pray for each one of them one day a week beginning from the eldest to the youngest (I pray for two on Saturday!). And each week I choose a passage of Scripture to pray on their behalf. In other words, I use the same passage for each child but adapt it to their needs and ages.

Each week on this blog I will share a verse(s) of Scripture I will be praying for each of my grandchildren. As already mentioned, although I will be praying the same verse each day of the week, I will adapt the passage for each child individually, mentioning other concerns and requests in the process, but the core of the prayer will be Scripture. I encourage you to do the same for your children, your spouse, or your friends, and for yourself. In the course of time we will be praying for all of their/our spiritual and material needs. Of course I hope that whole families can unite around these passages and pray them. I encourage you to choose seven (or more) people for whom you will pray each week, so that you can follow along on this prayer journey.

Of course praying the same verse for various people during the week should in no way exhaust the praying we should do each day, but this will help you get started on a journey that I hope will last a lifetime. An added benefit is that you’ll probably have memorized the verse(s) by the time the week is over!

Old Testament or New Testament?

I’ve decided that each month we will alternate between the Old Testament and the New as we pray passages of Scripture. There are plenty of promises, prayers, and other passages that can be adapted for prayer. What I will present is only a sampling of the vast resources of Scripture. In January we will pray passages from the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis; in February we will pray from the New Testament etc. 

Ready to begin?

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